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The Ties That Bind Two TV Siblings

Showtime’s “Homeland” and the Israeli television series on which it’s based, “Prisoners of War,” are like an experiment in genetics: Sharing DNA but raised by different parents in different environments, they’re entirely distinct while maintaining a strong family resemblance. Also, they’re both very good.

American audiences can continue to track these diverging paths now that Season 2 of “Prisoners of War” — shown in Israel last fall — is having its American premiere online at Hulu, where the first two episodes were posted on Tuesday morning. (All of the season’s 14 episodes are available immediately if you subscribe to Hulu Plus.)

Starting with the same general situation — captured soldiers returning home, their loyalty in question — the shows moved in different directions in their first seasons, “Homeland” toward the tense and mysterious, “Prisoners of War” toward the domestic and psychological. While the personal dynamics of the Brody family and the troubled C.I.A. officer Carrie Mathison in “Homeland” served to heighten the suspense, the mystery elements of “Prisoners of War” were a backdrop for complex character studies and melancholy family drama.

Those well-established differences continue in the shows’ second seasons, but the slower-moving Israeli story begins to pick up some of the urgency and grimness of its American cousin. In Season 1 of “Prisoners of War” (also available from Hulu), the only significant violence came in the frequent flashbacks to the Israeli soldiers’ time in captivity. A major revelation about another captive who was thought to have died, similar to one that came midway through the first season of “Homeland,” didn’t arrive until the final minutes of the season in “Prisoners of War.”

Season 2 of the Israeli show, by contrast, opens with a long and violent action scene, and the balance continues to tilt further in the direction of procedural mystery and political conspiracy as the episodes progress, with the military investigators Haim (Gal Zaid) and Iris (Sendi Bar) taking on more prominent roles.

This shift in emphasis has the effect of making “Prisoners of War” feel a little more ordinary to an American viewer, because it seems more like an American show. But the qualities that make it both good and (for us) unusual are still there: the lack of contrivance and air of everyday realism (which register as a non-American modesty), the leisurely pace, the avoidance of caricature.

“Prisoners of War” isn’t a better show than the slicker, starrier, more high-powered “Homeland.” While it’s capable of tremendously moving scenes (of an order that the American show doesn’t even approach), it can also veer into movie-of-the-week sentimentality. But they aren’t far apart. Anyone who enjoys “Homeland” should find “Prisoners” an entirely worthwhile companion piece.

A version of this article appears in print on May 29, 2013, on page C4 of the New York edition with the headline: The Ties That Bind Two TV Siblings. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe